Clarion Collection

DO NOT BOOK HERE, BUYER BEWARE!
I booked a room here a couple weeks away from Valentine’s Day as a way for my girlfriend and I to get away from work and spend some time on the wharf. Big mistake. Within just a few hours of booking the hotel room, my girlfriend had gotten a room somewhere else (much higher rated), which is an honest mistake; double bookings happen. I thought, «Oh, well. Guess I’ll pay a penalty or something.» Nope, much worse! I called the hotel and they straight up stonewalled me and (in not the same words, but just as rude), «Too bad, you’re out of luck. NO REFUNDS, PERIOD.» Really? Shows you how much of a low class spot this is. Every other hotel I’ve ever dealt with has been understanding of travel planning mistakes. Once this place gets your money, they won’t let go of it. The pictures of the grotesque rooms and terrible service complaints are real. Don’t stay here, and hopefully they will go out of business; they deserve to based on the way they handle their «guests.» I’m out $ 500, but hopefully my painful lesson will save the rest of you from dealing with this shady place. (Note: Check out Casa Munras. They heard about the situation and offered to let us cancel our booking with them, but we decided to stay with them anyway. I’d rather pay money for a stand-​up, higher rated place with some class than be forced to stay at the Clarion.)

Nice place for an overnight. Rooms come with queen bed and a twin. Décor is a bit dated but everything was clean and neat. Good quality bed and OK pillows. Adequate continental breakfast with really good coffee. They need shower mats as shower floor was slippery. Really nice big fluffy towels and plenty of them! For a romantic get away~ no. For an overnight~ absolutely!

The location is great but the service was awful. My room was a wreck. The furniture was torn and battered, the side table top had shattered glass, there was a shoe print on the «clean» sheets. The shower faucet and sink faucet both leaked. The whole building shook when someone closed their door. It was a miserable night.

Decent but flawed. This motel is actually pretty darn small. I would guess maybe twenty rooms total.
Nice location and actually had a peak ocean view.
Parking lot was a little too small for the hotel.
Breakfast was not a hot breakfast. Just some cereal and danishes and a couple of apples and oranges. No eggs. Nada. Waffles tho.
The room was okay, but no place to sit other than the bed. No real table either. Just a tiny night stand.
We didn’t pay a lot and the room was pretty clean. Good for a night or two max but not long term.

Took me a long time (1.5 hours) to find a decent hotel online. Found this one on american express travel. I was originally looking for 69/​night rate but decided on this one that i got for 89/​night because of the previous reviews. I stayed in room 104. It is a clean room, not up to date but very clean. Furniture is not perfect but I don’t care for this price. You can hear street traffic but it calms down as it gets later in the evening. Bring ear plugs if you’re a light sleeper. You can hear the ocean from the bathroom window at night. :) Bed was ok (manageable). I didn’t eat the breakfast, went to eat at Holly’s. I recommend this place for the price & I like the location.(much better than staying on n. fremont or munro). I prefer pacific grove and it’s fairly close (driving distance) to attractions). Refrigerator /​micro was in room convenient. I did unplug the fridge to get rid of the humming sound. I felt comfortable here.

Mind-​boggling combination of rude staff and dirty rooms (someones hair in your bed on check-​in, mold in the bathroom). It looks like they invested into some comforter sets and that would explain decent looking (but deceiving) pictures. Please pick a different hotel, there is plenty of them in the area (stayed in ~10 of them and never had a problem).

Staying at this hotel was one of the worst experiences I have ever had. My boyfriend and I checked in for my birthday weekend and requested a quiet room. They gave us a room on the bottom floor, right next to a screaming and crying baby. The walls are paper thin. We could hear everything (I mean everything) from every room around us. The person walking upstairs shook the ceiling fan (THERE’S NO AC) in our room. I called the front desk from my cell phone because the phone in the room was broken. I asked politely if we could move rooms because the baby would not stop crying. First, they had to check it out to see if I was lying. They never called me back after they supposedly investigated. I called back, and they said they didn’t hear anything, and that they couldn’t switch our room because they couldn’t hear anything. HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE customer service.
The room itself was a horrible. They stuff so much furniture into a tiny space that it feels claustrophobic as soon as you enter. There are no windows besides one facing a wall and another tiny one in the bathroom that needs to stay closed for obvious reasons. The shower had no water pressure, and the sink leaked everywhere and soaked all of my toiletries. The bed made both my boyfriend’s and my back hurt the next morning.
Bottom line, I would never recommend this hotel to anyone. Stay away! Definitely not worth it!

We stayed at Wilkie’s Clarion Hotel (WCH) in Pacific Grove, making reservations using the Comfortinn web site, and the AAA discount, paying $ 80 Saturday, and $ 72 Sunday, before taxes.
If you are a walk-​in on a major holiday weekend at WCH, expect to pay through the nose, with your wallet taking a major hit of at least $ 205 a night!
WCH is located in a quiet residential neighborhood at the top of a hill, about 0.8 miles from downtown old Pacific Grove. It is the first of a series of hotels along Lighthouse Ave, stretching to the ocean at Asilomar Beach.
Across the street is the butterfly sanctuary, so you know it’s got to be quiet!
WCH is a typical two story 1950s motel, with external corridors, no room balconies, with parking right next to the front door of your room.
Last year, I described the motel as painted in a garish pink color. This year the hotel was repainted in a very attractive orange-​brown with dark brown trim around the external corridors, and doors. They must have read my reviews!
There are 18 on site and 1 handicap parking spot, separated by a garden island from the street. There are some half dozen parking spots on the street adjacent to the hotel.
There are 11 rooms on the first floor, rooms 101 – 111, and 13 rooms on the second floor, rooms 201 – 212,214 –there is no room 213 –the Asian Indian proprietor made sure there was no room ending in unlucky 13!
Rooms 102 – 110, 202 – 210 have their main window alongside the door facing west, and the exterior corridor, and the parking lot.
A single queen bed is about $ 10 cheaper than a king bed room. 102, 103, 106, 107 are queens, while 108 is a two bed room. 202 204, 205, 209 have one queen bed and one single. 201,206,207,208 have one king, and a padded recliner chair.
In January 2014, I had room 102, and sat on the loveseat in the afternoon sun watching the 49ers beat the Falcons in the playoffs –how things have changed!
Rooms 101 and 201 at the north end have two corner windows facing the north and east with a partial ocean view above the residential rooftops across the street along Bayview avenue.
Rooms 202 – 210 have an additional second large window facing east, with a neighboring duplex obstructing a distant view of Monterey Bay on the horizon.
Our room 202 had brightly painted walls, with an attractive green carpet. Queen bed next to the front door, 31″ flat screen TV with HD cable channels and HBO on a rotating stand, 30″ tall refrigerator, microwave, 2 night stands with lamps, luminescent large digital clock, double door mirror closet, and 3 foot desk table with a land line –yes they still have land lines!
Comfortable firm bed, clean linens, and blanket. The windows had brand new wooden shutters replacing the old blackout curtains-​which I had complained about last year. Yes, they do read my reviews!
The second bed was a single with the headboard right next to the second large window, this one with a view of Monterey Bay in the far distance.
Bathroom was remodeled with a beautiful granite countertop, bathtub/​shower combination, and a low toilet, so that small boys will hit their target! Very clean. How many bathrooms have an ocean view when sitting on the toilet!
Antiquated and noisy wall heater was in the back of the room next to the double mirror door closet. Good, free Wi Fi access. No AC, but ceiling fan with lights. Pacific Grove is never hot, being right on the ocean.
Next to room 202 at the top of the stairs is a communal sun room, with 3 padded chairs around a table, surrounded by glass. You can just see Monterey Bay over the rooftops.
Breakfast is in the ‘lobby’ of the hotel. Most people eat in their rooms. There is converted patio sitting area with 2 tables, separated from outside by a temporary sliding door.
The only hot food are waffles and toast. Other foods include oatmeal, cereal, pastries, apples and oranges. Waits for the waffle maker were lengthy, as 1 guy made 3 waffles, each taking 2.5 minutes to cook!
No eggs, no potatoes, no sausages and no noise insulation in the walls. We heard the next door couples yelling, or their TVs on high volume –hard of hearing these seniors!
No swimming pool, but I consider that a plus, if it keeps families with noisy kids away!
Excellent service from the front desk. I forgot my toothbrush, and they provided a new one. I also forgot my wallet, but didn’t expect nor ask them to provide a new one! Wife reluctantly did all the driving after that!
We walked to downtown in 16 minutes, with no sidewalks for the first 2 blocks, and street lights on the opposite side of Lighthouse Ave. We also walked to the Asilomar Beach in 12 minutes –no sidewalks, Lovers Point in 18 minutes, and the Aquarium in about 34 minutes, along Ocean Ave. Warning: walking back is walking uphill!
No AC, no swimming pool, no noise insulation, and no speeding nor Hollywood stops –lots of black and whites checking out out of town cars!

While the place has a charm, and a good location, the staff could care less about customer service. We booked in advance for two nights. When we arrived, the parking lot was full (even though their website states parking as a «feature» I ask the front desk where I should park and was told, if there are no places in the lot, you will need to find a place on the street. That should have been my clue. I looked around the lobby and saw cereal dispensers. I asked if that was the breakfast and was told yes. I asked about the «hot» breakfast and was told there isn’t one even though their website also lists this as one of their features. We found a place to park and went to our room. It was old, no seal on the door, so you could feel a draft. I tried to turn the «dead» bolt night lock and it wouldn’t budge. I went back to the not so helpful front desk clerk and informed him I couldn’t use the deadbolt. He said well there’s the top swing lock, use that. I asked for a new room and was told sorry all booked, I’ll have someone look at the lock tomorrow, I asked what I was to do until then and his only reply was «I’ll cancel your reservation.» I should have let him do it.
The website also lists «Sitting Areas» as feature, our room didn’t have one chair. It did have a small glass table, but no chairs, I guess we could pull the table over to the end of the bed and sit there.
Also if you you have things that need to be plugged in over night, forget about, it. There is one plug next to the front door. No other plugs are easy to access.

Wilkie’s Inn — now owned by Clarion is a diamond in the rough. It seems they are undergoing some renovations to take it up a notch, and I respect that.
The good:
–Recently renovated bathrooms with granite countertops and shower, plentiful soft towels and great toiletries.
–Mini fridge and microwave in all rooms
–Very soft and comfortable bedding
–Free breakfast, limited choices of cold/​hot cereal, toast, or waffle machine (go for the waffles!)
–Free parking and decent wifi
The not-​so-​good:
–THIN WALLS. And by thin I mean I could clearly hear the people next door having sex, talking even in «indoor voices» and the other half of our party 3 doors down could hear the guy in the room next to us coughing with a hotel room in between them.
–Bedroom could use a little more updating; ie: paint and wallpaper peeling, though I think they are working on improving that with the renovations.
Overall for the price, this place wasn’t too bad. Again, the vast majority of people on vacation are just going to be sleeping at a hotel and not spending all of their time there, which makes this hotel a solid 3 stars. I might stay here again in the future if we can’t find another good hotel nearby.

Noise was a huge problem during our stay. There were three sources of noise problems: 1) Noise from the road which was not far away, 2) Noise from the people staying in the room above us (the floors need to be fixed, and insulation added), and 3) Noise from people /​cars outside the room. Because of this we will not stay here again.
Issues with the room 110:
1) The bathroom windowsill is seriously dirty. It needs to be cleaned and painted.
2) The shower handle is loose and needs to be fixed.
3) The furnace is seriously old, though it did work fine. It smelled bad when we first turned it on. It, at least, needs a paint job.
The bottom line is this: Don’t stay there unless you absolutely have to. Even if their nightly rate was lower (it should be considering the issues we experienced), it would not make up for the noise problems.

Had a pleasant stay. Located in a residential area not too far from Asilomar and town. Was distressed to later learn the company was paid by AT&T to hide a cell phone tower inside a chimney! There was no warning to guests or disclosure the World Health Organization has indicated the radiation from such towers is a possible cause of cancer ranking it with DDT and gasoline. Most surprising the cell tower is there since the motel is very near a pre-​school and the famous Butterfly Sanctuary

Clean room with a feel like a motel 6 attempting to be a motel 10 Sorry but upscale soap dosnt equal a great bed and soft pillow

Dear God. What is this place? «Low End» would be a gross understatement. People say its good value for the price, in fact it’s not. Our 3 night stay cost almost $ 600. For that you get NO air conditioning, paper thin walls, old worn out furniture, disgusting bathrooms, and if you’re lucky… Spotty wi-​if. Where’s the value? Don’t let the «Clarion» name fool you. You’re better off at a Holiday Inn, better yet, stay at a friends house and give them money. Shame, it’s in such a great neighborhood.

I’m impressed with the care and effort they take in this otherwise ordinary low end motel.
Good value, clean, friendly staff, safe neighborhood, and close to Monterey.

Don’t stay here! The walls are paper thin and the staff is horrible. There was a VERY noisy bunch above us and they kept us awake all night. I asked the management to accomodate us in some way and they refused — were actually rude about it. They have no clue what customer service is. I even told the desk clerk I was going to Unilocal about it and she just shrugged her shoulders and told me «go ahead».

This place is a good value for the money. Its no frills but for this area the price is right, its clean has a fair breakfast and friendly Indian Staff (a statue of Gonish greats you outside the office).
The walls and floors are paper thin like everyone says so what? For a night you could do worse check out my review of a hotel in Carmel and see what I mean.
As for you complainers remember this place is CHEAP so stop whinning about what it lacks already.
It was in a nice neighborhood
It was close to 17 Mile Drive
It was close to the Wharf
It was clean
It was free breakfast
The King bed was fine
The TV was a bit complicated to use but worked.
The first floor rooms should be avoided if you don’t want to hear the people upstairs doing everything including turning off the lamp switch!
For $ 100.00 bucks you could do worse and I think for a one night stay over its a good deal in this high rent tourist trap town.

I will never come back to this hotel for as long as I live. I don’t know why I didn’t Unilocal it first. You can hear everything. The walls are like cardboard, the beds are like cardboard, even the roof sounds like its made of cardboard. All I gotta say is this place is garbage. Spend your money else where.

A little off the beaten path, but easy walking distance to the «main drag» of Pacific Grove. Décor a bit out dated but it’s a cheap room. Friendly staff. Easy reservation and check in. Bed was hard as the floor. Felt like camping. If you’re on a budget and don’t mind an extra extra EXTRA firm mattress, this is great. 1 star for the uncomfortable bed.

Like in Unilocal,this place is a «meh. I’ve experienced better.»
It pretty much sums up the place.
It’s a good place to stay since it’s cheap and affordable. It’s a good distance from where we intended to go (Monterey Bay Aquarium), being only 10 – 15 minutes away or less.
We had two Queen sized beds in our room and didn’t have to wait when we came right in. It was quick and painless with the person checking us in in a matter of minutes.
Amenities: Free Wi-​Fi, mini fridge, microwave, coffee, cable TV.
I loved the free Wi-​Fi most of all. Sadly enough, the place doesn’t come with a DVD player.
The bathroom was clean and can fit two people, but when you flush the toilet it’s very, very loud and annoying. The amenities in here comes with your basic shampoo, lotion, and soap. You may want to buy more soap and shampoo if you’re more than two people (or don’t want to share). I do enjoy the hair dryer that they have.
The walls are also paper thin; we could hear the people above us moving around constantly.
The free breakfast was also pretty cheap, but nice — you can get cereal, coffee, English muffin, toast, basic pastry (no muffin, sadly enough), apples (no bananas or oranges), orange juice, milk, and oatmeal.
Overall, for something that is supposedly a «hotel» it felt more like a motel. I think if given the choice, I would choose another location besides this one. After driving around Monterey, I noticed other establishments that would have served a better place for us.
Price: $ 115 for a one night (New Year’s Eve)